


Bits and Pieces

by gozaimashita



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: F/M, Mild blood (nothing graphic!), Post-Canon, Short One Shot, Spoilers, Winry using her good good doctor skills, Zine: Blossoming – An FMAB Fanzine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-11
Updated: 2020-06-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:55:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24656431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gozaimashita/pseuds/gozaimashita
Summary: Winry helps with Ed's post-Promised Day recovery by making his right arm metal-free.
Relationships: Edward Elric & Winry Rockbell, Edward Elric/Winry Rockbell
Comments: 6
Kudos: 48





	Bits and Pieces

**Author's Note:**

> this fic is part of "Blossoming," which is a Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood fanzine that focuses a lot on healing, recovery, and growth. i joined the team as a mod, but i got to contribute this piece as a kinda impromptu addition. 
> 
> you know how even after Ed's right arm gets reaffixed to his body (thanks to Al's sacrifice), you can still see little bits of metallic shrapnel in his shoulder?? i felt like in the immediate aftermath of all the Promised Day stuff, physical therapy/care would be important for Ed's overall recovery (including, say, removing that shrapnel from his arm). and who better to help him with this than Winry? plus i just love their relationship and wish we got to see it develop even more at the end!

The wooden floorboards creaked beneath her feet as Winry led a disgruntled Edward Elric into the living room. Holding Ed’s hand, she walked towards where she had set up a rudimentary surgical chair. Ed’s right hand was warm in hers; that was still taking some time to get used to.

Winry was over at the Elrics’ house, which was not an abnormal occurrence. She found herself spending a lot of time over there recently. She had actually enlisted Al’s help in transmuting a regular chair from the Elric’s dining room into one better suited for surgery. Al had elongated the back and front of the wooden object so that his brother could lean back into the chair, and that Winry could work properly. He was so willing to help, and Winry thought that throughout his recovery Al was showing a love and excitement for life that she hadn’t seen him express since before he lost his body. 

Naturally, she felt an overbearing sense of protectiveness for the brothers. It was hard to shake that instinct, even now, months after the Promised Day. Logically, she knew that the boys weren’t in danger anymore. But Winry was realizing that there were still ways that she could be helpful for these boys. And one of those ways was putting her skills to use and helping Ed’s body fully recover from everything that it had gone through in the past few years. Specifically: Winry was going to get that damn automail shrapnel out of Ed’s right arm once and for all. Al might have succeeded in giving Ed his arm back, but it wasn’t a perfect surgical procedure by any means. Ed’s arm worked just fine, of course, but Winry hated seeing the bits of shrapnel every now and then. It was a symbol of Ed’s past that was embedded in his body, and if she had anything to say about it, that symbol deserved to disappear. It was time for everyone, especially Ed, to move forward.

Ed let out an annoyed grunt when the two of them reached the chair, pulling Winry out of her thoughts. Ed released his hand from Winry’s and folded his arms across his chest.

“I don’t know about this, Winry,” Ed grumbled, avoiding eye contact. 

Winry rolled her eyes. How many times had they had this conversation at this point? At least ten, she estimated.

“Ed, come on,” she chided. “This will be good for you! You deserve to, you know…” She struggled to find the right words. “Feel whole.”

She could tell that Ed didn’t like that. He scoffed.

“I’ve told you, Winry, I’m perfectly fine!” Ed said in a tone that was reserved just for her. It fell somewhere between high-and-mighty and playful teasing. Winry shot him a look back that said: “I know better than you and I always will.”

Reluctantly, Ed sat down on the chair. Winry sat down on a stool next to him and turned towards a table where she had brought a variety of medical tools from home. Ed was wearing a tank top, which gave Winry enough access to the part of his body that needed to be repaired.

“Well, first things first: I can’t work with your hair in the way,” Winry said. “Lean forward.”

Ed obliged. With tender hands, Winry scooped up the long strands of golden hair falling down Ed’s shoulders and back. She pulled them together behind his neck into one clean ponytail and fastened it high on his head with a ribbon she had brought from home. She smiled in spite of herself, feeling a bit rebellious with the knowledge that Ed couldn’t see her face. She really did love his hair.

“Okay, you can lean back now,” she instructed her patient. Ed exhaled and slumped against the chair, trying very hard to act like this didn’t mean anything to him.

Winry handed Ed a painkiller pill, which he swallowed grudgingly. Then she pulled out a pair of surgical pliers.

“Remember, if this gets too painful, please just tell me to stop,” Winry said, biting her lip. “Can you promise me you’ll do that if…if I’m hurting you?” 

Ed waved his non-injured hand around in a nonchalant gesture. “Of course I will, Winry, jeez! You act like this will be the worst thing I’ve ever experienced. You know that I’ve literally had my arm and leg _severed _from my body, right? Within a couple of minutes from each other? And I was ELEVEN.”__

__“Alright, alright! I get it! Drama queen…” Winry muttered under her breath. She could tell that Ed was faking a bit of his confidence. No one is ever really willing to endure pain, no matter how much they’ve dealt with it in the past._ _

__She brought the piers down to the first piece of shrapnel embedded in Ed’s arm. Once she had a firm grasp on it, she plucked it out in a quick upward motion. Ed bristled and inhaled sharply through clenched teeth._ _

__“Was that okay, Ed?” Winry asked._ _

__“Oh yeah, that was nothing!” Ed said, nodding. His voice had climbed an octave, though, and one eye was shut tight in an obvious grimace. Whatever, Winry thought. He can play “tough guy” all he wants. She got back to work, periodically removing bits of metal and tending to the small exit wounds on Ed’s shoulder._ _

__“It’s gonna be weird…” Ed started, cutting through the comfortable silence that had formed between them._ _

__Winry was focusing so intently on her work that his words only vaguely registered. “Hm? What is?”_ _

__“Just, not having automail be part of my arm anymore,” Ed said. He stifled a laugh. “I’ll have two perfectly normal arms again. That just seems so weird to me.”_ _

__“Huh,” Winry said, not looking up from her careful operation. “I guess you have a point. You still have to live with an automail leg forever, though. Doesn’t that bother you?” Winry wasn’t sure if she had crossed a boundary with that question; she braced herself for his reaction._ _

__“Eh, not really,” Ed said casually, shrugging with his left shoulder. “I’ve gotten so used to it at this point. Plus, I made a mistake. I deserve to have this leg,” Ed said. Winry didn’t really know how to respond to that, so she just continued working. Silence stretched between them again._ _

__“Al did a nice job with this chair,” Ed remarked a few moments later, looking down at one of the wooden armrests. He seemed to be admiring its structure and craft in a way only an alchemist could. Well, a former alchemist, at least._ _

__“Do you miss it?” Winry asked, her voice barely above a whisper._ _

__“Every day,” he said. Winry paused, looking up from Ed’s shoulder at his face. His gaze was fixed on a point in front of him, eyes shimmering and sad. There was no doubt that he was mentally putting himself back in time to a point when he still had command of alchemy; when he could bend matter to his will and shape it into his own devices, just by pressing his palms together. It really was a shame, Winry thought. The world could have benefited so much from Edward Elric, alchemist extraordinaire. More than it already had, of course._ _

__“I,” she started, the words catching in her throat. “I’m sorry.”_ _

__“Don’t apologize,” Ed said. His voice was serious and incredibly sincere. “It was worth it. Compared to living the rest of my life without Al?” Ed inhaled sharply through his nose, obviously trying to keep his emotions steady. He closed his eyes, composing himself. After a few seconds, he snapped them open fiercely. “There’s nothing I wouldn’t have sacrificed if it meant I got to have my brother back.”_ _

__Winry recognized the look in Ed’s eyes. It was the same one that appeared every time he would promise her that he and Al would get their bodies back. Pure determination, she thought. That’s what it was._ _

__“I know,” she said softly. And she meant it._ _

__The two of them slipped back into silence. This time it was palpable in the air, filled with the tension of unspoken thoughts and feelings. It wasn’t necessarily unpleasant, though, because Winry knew that there was no rush anymore. She didn’t have to track Ed and Al down in some far-away town just to see them for a night before boarding a train back to Resembool the next morning. Ed had expressed a desire to travel again, potentially out west, but that wasn’t happening yet. For now, he was right here with her. The two of them would have plenty of time to talk to each other, debrief experiences, unpack trauma. Finally come together again. Her heart felt very light, suddenly._ _

__“OUCH! SON OF A –” Ed winced as Winry very abruptly extracted the final piece of shrapnel from Ed’s shoulder. She dropped it with an anticlimactic _thunk _on the metal table beside her.___ _

____“And…you’re done,” she said matter-of-factly. She took a roll of gauze and wrapped the material a few times around Ed’s shoulder to keep some of the minor bleeding at bay. Once that was secure, she slowly looked up at Ed’s face. He was staring down at his shoulder._ _ _ _

____“How do you feel? Winry asked as Ed slid off of the chair. He stood in front of the chair for a while, rolling his now automail-free shoulder a few times and stretching out his right arm. He was facing away from her, silent, and Winry was nervous that she had messed up the operation somehow. But then he turned around, wearing his trademark larger-than-life Edward Elric smile. Winry could’ve sworn that his eyes looked a little damp._ _ _ _

____“It feels great,” he said, his voice thick with emotion._ _ _ _

____Winry met Ed’s gaze, heat rising in her face partially from being complimented on her work and partially because of the way Ed was looking at her. His gaze was soft and relaxed, full of gratitude and – what Winry thought was – affection. She stood up and reached for Ed’s right hand, gently squeezing it in hers._ _ _ _

____“It looks great, too,” she said._ _ _ _

____Hand-in-hand, the two of them stepped outside into the sunlight._ _ _ _

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!! i loved being part of this zine, as both a mod and a writer. and to anyone who actually bought a copy of Blossoming...tysm :)


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